B-Sides and Badlands - Freshly Squeezed, Vol. 88
If you haven’t heard the name Billie Eilish whispered through trembling, clammy lips, you’re about to. Equipped with her bone-chilling and thrilling debut LP, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?(yes, screaming right into your eardrums), the 17-year-old is hypnotic and avant-garde and deliciously sinister across nearly every song. “bad guy” is a throat-strangling banger taunting her tough-guy lover, while wrestling with her own sterile exterior and what is bubbling just beneath the surface. “You said she’s scared of me / mean, I don’t see what she sees / But maybe it’s ’cause I’m wearing your cologne,” she flicks the words as fire-ice venom from her tongue. And before you know it, you’re at her very mercy, dear listener, with no way to escape. Let the music swallow you whole; there’s no other choice.
King Commoner‘s voice is baked in the sun. “Somewhere in the crowd, there’s a faintly whispered sound / You can barely make it out unless you’re quiet as a mouse / When we’re at a loss, when the cold world takes its shot / Honey, that’s all we got,” he sings, the jangle of percussion bouncing off electric guitar and steel. “‘Till the Sun,” from his brand new EP, The Heart’s Electric, he shifts out the beauty and hope of the world, one drowning in tragedy and disaster. In mixing synthetic electronics with the organic instruments, allowing the melody to really breathe, the Los Angeles musician and singer-songwriter unearths a new way of consuming (and then digesting) life’s crucial lessons.
Americana rocker M. Lockwood Porter is a courageous kind of guy. His astounding and emotionally-cutting new record, Communion in the Ashes, is a soul-draining expedition through a world he perceives as one not far removed from a sci-fi dystopia. “Broken Light,” which opens on stark ivories and his voice calling from across a fog, laments the descending darkness of “false prophets” and his attempts to wade through it all with only shards of brightness pinging from his soul. “I thought I could make it through the night,” he mutters, as more of a confessional to himself than anything.
Our latest bop-able playlist also includes: Cory Stewart, Leah Kate, Aaron Espe, Northern National, Simon Lunche, Tom Wardle, Mathew V, Blood Cultures, Leland, Lenny Zenith, Eden Warsaw, Jacob Faurholt, Emily Vaughn, Jonathan Something, Gabrielle Aplin, Brit Daniels, Cubbi, Shovels & Rope, The WLDLFEand countless others.
In all, we’ve got 50 new tracks to cry to, to dance to, to let life go to.
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